Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

I may be in the minority on this issue, but I’m really not all  that worried about Mark Zuckerberg having all sorts  of my personal data.  After all, we knew that when  we signed up for Facebook, or should have.  They haven’t made any secret of the fact that they are collecting data on  us.  They haven’t even made any secret of the fact that they sell that data to advertisers.  Which is why I get invitations to join AARP and stuff like that.
One of my friends wrote that “They have a record of all my phone calls!”  O.K.  I imagine the phone company does, as well, and they will  give it up to the police the first time they ask.  Happens on  T.V. all the time.  I saw another comment that said “Facebook has a list of all my friends and even their birthdays!”  Yes.  This is called a friend’s list.  I quite like the birthday reminder feature, actually.  I never could remember anybody’s birthday.  Now, I remember everybody’s.

The fact that that data was used for political manipulation is a new wrinkle, I suppose, but it was inevitable.  Apparently, for the moment at any rate, the right is making better use of that than the left.  We may have cooler memes, but they’re willing to spend the big bucks to target their ads.  So, we need to get better at exploiting the system.  We do have way more smart people on our side than they do, so it’s possible.
Basically, here’s how I feel about it:  We can have a world mind, capable of storing all the world’s knowledge and allowing the free flow of ideas and information, that can find solutions to all the world’s problems, and  that can eventually grant us immortality through digital download, or we can preserve our privacy.

If you choose privacy, maybe Facebook  is not the right format  for you.

O.K., I really  didn’t do much but, in the end, it turned out to be  a productive weekend.  My latest poetry book, Paradox, which I’m pretty pleased  with, if I say so myself, and I do, is up on Amazon, and I’ve ordered a few copies.  Apparently not yet on Kindle,  though, which is a  bit weird, although I think we’ve got that problem rectified, too, and it  should be up in a week or so.
Of course, when I say ‘I think,’ I mean Helena said.  I just write the poems. Everything to do with the actual production  of the book, that’s her department.
Also, we (and by we I mean she) have figured out how to offer a book for free on Kindle, so I’m going to start offering a book for free every week.  That’s about  a 10 week rotation, if I limit it to the books I think are actually worth reading, which is the plan.

Of course, I’m hoping that if enough people read my books  for free, they might realize they want to read  more, and they might leave reviews, and they might realize that even  though they got it for free, poetry books make great gifts for Christmas, birthdays, Valentine’s day, really any occasion at all  where you might want to give a gift, they are within most people’s price range and it’s poetry, so it makes you seem like a deep, sensitive person, even  if you’re not.

Mostly, though,  I just want you to read them.

These Parkland kids have really started something.  Today, millions of people  marched all across the USA in favor of gun control.  There were even some supporting demonstrations across Europe.  There were big crowds.    I’ve heard 500,000, and I’ve heard 1 million for the DC march alone.  Paul McCartney attended the rally in New York, and the granddaughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., who  is about 11 I think, spoke to the rally in D.C. and totally rallied the crowd.  This is a movement, and it’s not going anywhere.  My gun loving friends are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to argue it away, but it’s not working this time.

One particularly lame argument I’ve heard from more that a couple of gun nuts, is “Why is Parkland different?  There were never protests  of  this  size after Sandy Hook, or any of the others.”  They may use that to bolster their absurd claim that the students involved were actually actors.  They may not, but what it so.we’re peddling now is exactly the same dumb shit we’ve been peddling forever, and it’s not fair that you should object now when you never did before.

That’s what I think they think, that’s what I think  they feel;  somewhat betrayed, because they’re not  winning this time and they’re unfamiliar with the feeling.
But, there were protests after Sandy Hook, and all of the others.  They were ignored.  This time, that’s going to get a hell of a lot harder.

It hasn’t been a terribly productive beginning to the weekend.  Did post one very short poem which hasn’t got much response and just watched a film (Helena chose it) with Kate Winslett and Idris Elba stranded in the snow, after their pilot  had a stroke or heart attack or something and died.  They were on a private plane because the commercial airlines had all  canceled due to weather.  You  knew right there that this was two stupid people in for trouble.  When the airlines say it ain’t safe to fly, it ain’t safe to fly.  I was surprised that I liked  it, but I did.  It  was predictable, but had great scenery, good acting, and what more do you want?
Other than that, getting high and wasting time arguing on  Facebook.  Guns on a couple of threads, and on another (a complaint about the horrible, evil crime of mansplaining) I expressed a viewpoint that was not at all  in keeping with the consensus of the thread.  O.K., so I’m a man, and I have opinions.  If that’s what mansplaining is, I suppose I’m guilty of it.

You  know what?  I’ve got nothing tonight.  Tomorrow’s another day.

I see many people  on Facebook say they are going to leave Facebook because of this whole Cambridge Analytica foofaraw.  I see many  more saying we all should leave.  And I even see some saying Facebook is doomed, that it will never survive this shocking incident, and pointing out that Mark Zuckerberg has lost about $8 billion in the last two days.
Let me reply to these comments in reverse order.  Zuckerberg has somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred billion dollars, which is a pretty nice neighborhood, indeed.  Sure, it will hurt him, nobody wants to lose 8 billion dollars, but 8 out of a hundred?  If you go out with a hundred bucks in your pocket and suddenly you notice you’ve only got 92, you might spend a moment trying to recall where it went, but you aren’t going to ruin your evening over it.  Even more so if you’re talking about billions.  There is no restaurant on Earth  that a person  with only 92 billion dollars can’t eat at, no house  they can’t buy.  Losing that 8 billion doesn’t  affect  his  day to day existence one bit.
As far as Facebook being  doomed, I’ve heard that before.  It’s as constant as people saying “Saturday Night Live just isn’t funny  any more.”  I’ve even signed up  for a couple of the  other sites. It’s never quite clicked.

Facebook hasn’t gone the way of MySpace yet, so I’m not expecting it to happen in the next couple of weeks, either.

Then, there are those people who say we should ALL leave Facebook.  O.K.  I’m  actually down with that, as soon as I see a viable alternative.  But, as I said above, I’ve tried a couple of others and nothing’s been  an improvement yet.
And, back to the people who say “I’m going to leave.”  No, you’re not, not any more than Joe Biden literally thinks he would have kicked Donald Trump’s ass if they were in High School together.  I’m not saying it’s an unworthy sentiment, but seriously…how many people’s asses did you kick when you were in High School, Joe?  It’s just using threat words, with nothing behind them.  There’s one person I know on Facebook who threatens to quit almost every day, but I know she won’t, because she’s still there.
If she ever does quit, I won’t know.  There’s the irony.